Tag: Halmos College of Arts and Sciences

CAHSS Alumna is TED Talks Presenter on Conflict Resolution

Dorothy Walker speaks at TED@WellsFargo, February 5, 2020, at the Knight Theater in Charlotte, NC. Photo: Ryan Lash / TED

 

Dorothy Walker, Ph.D., 2015 doctoral graduate of the Department of Conflict Resolution Studies (DCRS) in NSU’s College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences (CAHSS) gave a TED Talks presentation entitled, “Three Ways to Resolve a Conflict.” Walker is a certified Project Manager at Wells Fargo, as well as a mediator and facilitator.

In addition to her doctoral degree, Walker also received her B.S. in Business Administration from NSU. She earned an M.S. in Telecommunications from the University of Denver and a Master’s Certificate in Project Management from The George Washington University.

To access her TED Talk, please go to https://youtu.be/r4xPwhcnS-Q

CAHSS History Class Hosts Zoom Session with the Syrian Emergency Task Force

The course, HIST 4700, Genocide in the 20th Century and Beyond, offered by the Department of History and Political Science (DHPS) in NSU’s College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences (CAHSS) ended the term with a Zoom meeting with the Syrian Emergency Task Force (SETF).  After visiting Poland, Hungary, Serbia, Bosnia, and sites such as Auschwitz and Srebrenica, and meeting with survivors of the Bosnian genocide, one last step was to talk with a survivor of the current catastrophe in Syria. Connecting with the Syrian Emergency Task Force, students in HIST 4700 were honored with a 2-hour Zoom session featuring Mouaz Moustafa, the executive director of SETF, and Natalie Larrison, the director of outreach.  They run a host of programs including supporting an orphanage and providing humanitarian aid and support for people in Syria.

As part of the session, Omar Aslhogre, a survivor of torture in Assad’s prisons, spoke to the class describing his experiences, and how he survived. Arrested seven times by the time he was 17, his final arrest resulted in a brutal stay of three years in various Syrian Prisons, including the notorious Sedanya Prison. He told the story of the “University of Whispers.”  He finally escaped after his mother paid a bribe. Upon his release, Aslhogre weighed barely 75 pounds. Aslhogre has also testified before Congress and along with Moustafa, has been instrumental in getting the Caesar Bill passed by Congress and signed by the President.

Gary Gershman, J.D., Ph.D., professor in the DHPS and course instructor, arranged the Zoom session. He has a working relationship with the SETF. Gershman was one of two recipients of the 2017 Curt C. and Else Silberman Faculty Seminar Follow-Up Grant for the United States

For more information about the Syrian Emergency Task Force, please see their website at: https://www.syriantaskforce.org/.  For more information about the course, please contact Gershman at ggershma@nova.edu

Halmos Researchers Demonstrate How Staghorn Coral Restoration Projects Show Promise in the Florida Keys

A new analysis of reef restoration projects in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary suggests they could play a key role in helping staghorn coral recover after decades of decline. Steven Miller, Ph.D., a research scientist at NSU’s Halmos College; and his former master’s student, Matt Ware, Ph.D. (‘12); worked with their colleagues to present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on May 6, 2020.

Once widespread in Caribbean reefs, staghorn coral populations have declined by over 90 percent since the 1970s. After the species was listed as Threatened under the U.S. Endangered Species Act in 2006, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) initiated a recovery plan. A central part of this plan is outplanting, in which corals are cultivated in an offshore nursery before being transplanted to restoration sites.

While outplanting efforts have been in place for many years, only recently has enough time passed to analyze their long-term potential. Now, Ware and colleagues have applied photographic monitoring and scuba diving  to assess 2,419 staghorn coral colonies outplanted to 20 different sites in the Florida Keys between 2007 and 2013 by the Coral Restoration Foundation.

The analysis revealed that survivorship – the percentage of colonies containing living tissue – was high for the first two years after outplanting, but declined in subsequent years. Survivorship among projects based on colony counts was highly variable, between 4% and 89% for seven projects with corals that survived at least five years. The researchers also used statistical modeling to predict future survivorship, finding that 0 to 10 percent of the colonies would survive seven years post-outplanting. This means that large numbers of colonies need to be outplanted to start, so ecologically relevant numbers survive longer-term. Coral growth rates were similar to the wild population.

The authors acknowledge some limitations of their analysis, including low or variable sample sizes among projects and the retrospective nature of their analyses that made it difficult to identify how different habitat types and reef locations affected survivorship

Still, the findings suggest that outplanting could help restore staghorn coral populations by protecting against local extinction and maintaining genetic diversity in the wild. Meanwhile, the same major stressors that have plagued these corals over the last few decades – disease and bleaching, both related to global warming – remain. The new findings support NOAA conclusions that mitigating these stressors is needed to achieve full, long-term recovery.

Citation: Ware M, Garfield EN, Nedimyer K, Levy J, Kaufman L, Precht W, Winters, RS, and Miller, SL. (2020) Survivorship and growth in staghorn coral (Acropora cervicornis) outplanting projects in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. PLoS ONE 15(5): e0231817. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0231817

Africa Working Group in CAHSS wins Stuey Graduate Organization of the Year

The Africa Working Group (AWG) in the Department of Conflict Resolution Studies (DCRS) in NSU’s College of  Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences (CAHSS) received the NSU 2020 Stuey Award for Graduate Student Organization.

The AWG for conflict and peace studies was founded in the summer of 2004 within the Department of Conflict Resolution Studies (DCRS) in CAHSS Since its envisioned conception, the AWG continues as a joint project between faculty, students, and alumni interested in the subject of peace and conflict studies on the African continent.

In 2017, the AWG changed its format from presentations to invigorating round-table discussions. Debate facilitators research the topics and are prepared with facts that they use to challenge the audience. These engaging debates have captured and attracted more participants, leading to an active group of 21 consistent members. These brilliant arguments have resulted in proposed strategies to the hot topics ranging from international policies that affect Africa, legitimacy of International Criminal Court, and women in political leadership, to military coups.  This supports learning and encourages more research/scholarship. The AWG has also participated in International Education Week during the Global Village event in fall and has volunteered for the Community Fest.

One of the AWG’s greatest highlights was on April 28, 2018 when the group was delighted to host His Excellency, Ambassador Samson Itegboje, Deputy Permanent Representative of Nigeria to the United Nations, as a Keynote Speaker. The event was filled with African culture and fashion, and drew a large audience from within and beyond the NSU community. Ambassador Itegboje, discussed “Nigeria: Yesterday’s Promises, Tomorrow’s Vision.” AWG’s collaboration with other student groups has led to increased support by CAHSS-SGA, International Business Student Association, and Student Mediation Services. The AWG welcomes students, faculty, staff, and alumni. Ismael Muvingi, Ph.D., faculty in DCRS is the faculty advisor. He was the CAHSS Co-Curricular Advisor of the Year and an NSU Stuey finalist.

Halmos College Faculty and Students Present Protein Modeling at Virtual Conference

During April, a Halmos College faculty and student team was accepted to the National meeting of the American Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Originally the symposium was scheduled to be held in San Diego, but due to COVID-19, the event was moved to a virtual platform. The team prepared a video presentation and posted to YouTube to link to the nationwide event.

The team consisted of Halmos faculty members Arthur Sikora, Ph.D., Emily Schmitt Lavin, Ph.D. Halmos College undergraduate students: Feza Abbas, Matthew Hunt, Lyla Abbas, Helana Ghali, Alesa Chabbra, and Mina Ghali. The team modeled two well know inhibitors of HIV-1 protease called Darunavir and Ritonavir. They also used chemical elements of both inhibitors to design a hypothetical new inhibitor that they named “Sharkavir” in honor of the NSU Sharks. The group worked in conjunction with the Center for Biomolecular Modeling as part of their NSF funded project to develop protein modeling research through the CREST (Connecting Researchers, Educators, and STudents) Program.

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) affects approximately 37 million people worldwide and results in over 1 million deaths annually. A class of drugs first developed in 1995 inhibits the enzyme HIV-1 protease, thus preventing the maturation of an HIV precursor protein. There are now over 10 protease inhibitors available to treat HIV. Multiple mutations in the protein have made this treatment less effective. Darunavir is currently one of the strongest competitive inhibitors, as it binds effectively to the substrate envelope and has yielded a lower resistance for patients. The most effective treatment is a combination of two of these inhibitors: Darunavir and Ritonavir. In order to explain how these drugs work, the active site of the non-mutated wild-type HIV-1 protease was depicted as a binding box model. The protease inhibitors Darunavir, Ritonavir, and our hypothetical drug, “Sharkavir” were 3D printed to show how they fit into the protease active site. Details of the wild-type HIV-1 protease, as well as the drugs Darunavir, and Ritonavir, were found in the Protein Data Bank files. The new protease inhibitor molecule, “Sharkavir”, was designed as a combination of Darunavir and Ritonavir using Marvin Sketch: a software used to manipulate molecular structures.

 

Halmos Faculty Participates in NSF STEM for All Video Showcase

From May 5 to May 12, Halmos Faculty Member Arthur Sikora, Ph.D. collaborated with faculty around the country to present their video entitled, “Rich Collaborations Yield More than Expected: BASIL lab. This curriculum from the BASIL (Biochemistry Authentic Scientific Inquiry Laboratory) collaboration aims to get students to transition from thinking like students to thinking and acting like scientists. Students will analyze proteins with known structure but unknown function using both computational and wet-lab techniques. BASIL is designed for undergraduate biochemistry lab courses but can be adapted to first year (or even high school) settings, as well as upper-level undergraduate or graduate coursework. It is targeted to students in biology, biochemistry, chemistry, or related majors.

Sikora stated, “We have been fortunate to have robust anticipated learning outcomes that were developed by our collaborators at Purdue. The full set is published in “Anticipated Learning Outcomes for a Biochemistry Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experience Aimed at Predicting Protein Function from Structure: Implications for Assessment Design” Irby et al BAMBED 2018. Several members of the group have started working with these ALOs to design targeted assessments.”

The 2020 National Science Foundation (NSF) STEM for All Video Showcase is an annual online event. Each year, it hosts between 100-200 three-minute video presentations from federally funded projects that aim to improve STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) and computer science education. During the seven days of this online event, Principal Investigators, practitioners, administrators, researchers, policy makers, industry and the public at large are encouraged to participate. All participants will be able to view the video presentations, post to the facilitated discussions related to each video, and vote for the videos that are most effective in conveying the creative work being done. All videos and discussions will be archived for perpetual future access. In addition, all videos from this Showcase will be added to the collection in the STEM for All Multiplex after the online May event.

Physical Distancing May Be New for Humans, 
Not So Much For Whale Sharks

When it comes to physical (social) distancing, humans could learn a thing or two from whale sharks. Seeing one in the ocean is a rare occurrence, indeed, and a big deal – so much so that a recent sighting off the west coast of Florida made several news reports.

For a group of research scientists, “Rio Lady” is one whale shark that shows just how physical distancing works. She was originally ‘tagged’ in 2007 and hadn’t been seen since her tag popped off a few months later. That was until 2011. And she’s since been “re-tagged,” this time with a satellite tag that is showing some remarkable results.

You can read the full press release ONLINE. In addition, enclosed are high resolution photos you can use and here’s a link to b-roll video from the Guy Harvey Ocean Foundation.

 

Halmos Undergraduate Co-Authors an Article in a Bioanalytical Chemistry Journal

This spring, Halmos College Biology major Elaine Ognjanovski (minors in Psychology and Experiential Leadership) co-authored a publication with Richard H. Perry, Ph.D. entitled, “Identification of lipid biomarkers of metastatic potential and gene expression (HER2/p53) in human breast cancer cell cultures using ambient mass spectrometry”, which was published in the journal Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry. Dr. Perry, a faculty member in the Department of Chemistry and Physics, worked with Elaine on developing a desorption electrospray ionization mass spectrometry method that enables the identification of lipid biomarkers of HER2/p53 expression, metastatic potential, and disease state in monolayer, suspension, and spheroid human breast cancer cell cultures.

The article’s abstract states: “In breast cancer, overexpression of human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) correlates with overactivation of lipogenesis, mutation of tumor suppressor p53, and increased metastatic potential. The mechanisms through which lipids mediate p53, HER2, and metastatic potential are largely unknown. We have developed a desorption electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (DESI-MS) method to identify lipid biomarkers of HER2/p53 expression, metastatic potential, and disease state (viz. cancer vs. non-cancerous) in monolayer and suspension breast cancer cell cultures (metastatic potential: MCF-7, T-47D, MDA-MB-231; HER2/p53: HCC2218 (HER2+++/p53+), HCC1599 (HER2−/p53−), HCC202 (HER2++/p53−), HCC1419 (HER2+++/p53−) HCC70 (HER2−/p53+++); non-cancerous: MCF-10A). Unsupervised principal component analysis (PCA) of DESI-MS spectra enabled identification of twelve lipid biomarkers of metastatic potential and disease state, as well as ten lipids that distinguish cell lines based on HER2/p53 expression levels (> 200 lipids were identified per cell line). In addition, we developed a DESI-MS imaging (DESI-MSI) method for mapping the spatial distribution of lipids in metastatic spheroids (MDA-MB-231). Of the twelve lipids that correlate with changes in the metastatic potential of monolayer cell cultures, three were localized to the necrotic core of spheroids, indicating a potential role in promoting cancer cell survival in nutrient-deficient environments. One lipid species, which was not detected in monolayer MDA-MB-231 cultures, was spatially localized to the periphery of the spheroid, suggesting a potential role in invasion and/or proliferation. These results demonstrate that combining DESI-MS/PCA of monolayer and suspension cell cultures with DESI-MSI of spheroids is a promising approach for identifying lipid biomarkers of specific genotypes and phenotypes, as well as elucidating the potential function of these biomarkers in breast cancer.”

 

Citation: Heather M. Robison, Corryn E. Chini, Troy J. Comi, Seung Woo Ryu, Elaine Ognjanovski and Richard H. Perry *, Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry, 2020, 412, 2949–2961. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-020-02537-4

CAHSS Alumna Collaborates with Department of Family Therapy on Quality of Life Grant

 

Janessa Dominquez, Ph.D., doctoral graduate of the Department of Family Therapy (DFT) in NSU’s College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences (CAHSS) is collaborating on a research project with Pei-Fen Li, Ph.D., faculty and Director of Accreditation and Arlene Brett Gordon, Ph.D., Director of the Brief Therapy Institute in DFT. The project focuses on providing Solution-Focused Brief Group Therapy to parents and caregivers of individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in order to explore strengths and strategies. It received Quality of Life funding in 2018.

Dominguez is the founder and CEO of Shaping Change, LLC. in Weston. She is a Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA), Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT), Qualified Behavior Analyst (QBA), and Licensed Mental Health Counselor (LMHC). Dr. Dominguez is also the Co-Coordinator of the Children and Adults with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (CHADD) South Broward/North Dade Chapter, and a Professional Crisis Management (PCM) instructor. She has worked in a variety of settings from schools, homes, clinics and community settings providing a multitude of services to address challenging behaviors. She supervises individuals seeking certification as Registered Behavior Technicians (RBT) and behavior analysts, and conducts trainings on a variety of topics. Dominguez has presented at national conferences, as well as international conferences, focusing on autism, behavior, and the family system. Dominguez is an adjunct instructor for DFT and for the College of Psychology at NSU.

In addition to her doctoral degree from NSU, Dominguez received her B.S. in Psychology with a miner in Business, and her M.S. in Counseling with an advanced concentration in Applied Behavior Analysis from NSU.

NSU Musical Ensembles and Drumline Perform at the Celebration of Excellence and other Functions

NSU’s Celebration of Excellence held on February 29, 2020, featured the fabulous musical performances of Canta Sempre, the Pistris Ensemble, and the NSU Drumline. Canta Sempre is a vocal ensemble established by Shark Talent Scholars. The Pistris Ensemble is a chamber music ensemble from the Department of Performing and Visual Arts (DPVA). NSU’s Drumline was established in August 2019. DPVA music majors, Razor’s Edge Shark Talent Scholars, and other Razor’s Edge Scholars are a part of this exciting group.

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